The Great Moderation is often characterized by the decline in the variability of output and inflation from earlier periods. While a multitude of explanations for the Great Moderation exist, notable research has focused on the role of monetary policy. Specifically, early evidence suggested that...

Monetary policy rule parameters are usually estimated at the mean of the interest rate distribution conditional on inflation and an output gap. This is an incomplete description of monetary policy reactions when the parameters are not uniform over the conditional distribution of the interest...

In this paper, we investigate whether the Google search activity can help in nowcasting the year-on-year growth rates of monthly US private consumption using a real-time data set. The Google-based forecasts are compared to those based on a benchmark AR(1) model and the models including the...

We document the empirical properties of revisions to major macroeconomic variables in the United States. Our findings suggest that they do not satisfy simple desirable statistical properties. In particular, we find that these revisions do not have a zero mean, which indicates that the initial...

This paper evaluates out-of-sample exchange rate forecasting with Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) and Taylor rule fundamentals for 9 OECD countries vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar over the period from 1973:Q1 to 2009:Q1 at short and long horizons. In contrast with previous work, which reports...

The supply-side framework and related measures of output and unemployment gaps play a leading role in the OECD analysis of short-term conjunctural conditions and long-term determinants of growth. To allow such diagnoses for Poland, this paper develops a comprehensive supply block in accordance...

Forecasts are only as good as the data behind them. But macroeconomic data are revised, often significantly, as time passes and new source data become available and conceptual changes are made. How is forecasting influenced by the fact that data are revised? To answer this question, we begin...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of six types of policy rules applied for Indonesia, using monthly data spanning January 1980 to December 2008. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses deterministic simulations on a small macro model and evaluates the...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of six types of policy rules applied for Indonesia, using monthly data spanning January 1980 to December 2008. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses deterministic simulations on a small macro model and evaluates the...